This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
It seems manifestly true to me that they're is a substantial portion of the world's population who believe that Israel as a nation should not exist and who will cheer enthusiastically upon seeing Israeli sons killed and daughters raped.
To dismiss the acknowledgement of this fact as a mere "snarl word" strikes me as either extremely naive or purposefully uncharitable.
These people are real and are indeed antisemites, but the definition of antisemitism in use by prominent zionists is sufficiently self serving as to provide no particular evidence in favor of this- you know that various Iranian front groups are antisemites because of their words, not the labels of the Israeli government.
More options
Context Copy link
This is a real phenomenon, anti-Semitism is a real phenomenon, and obviously a lot of anti-Semites are also anti-Israel, but you can want Israel destroyed without hating Jews qua Jews. Using "anti-Semitism" for - even vicious - hatred of Eretz Yisrael alone frankly is mostly a cudgel - it's trying to discredit all anti-Zionists by equating them to Hitler. (Of course, the NSDAP, while of course horrifically anti-Semitic, wasn't actually notably anti-Zionist - in some cases they supported Zionism in order to get Jews to emigrate.)
To give a similar non-Jew example: I'm very leery of Mainland Chinese expats and exports. This problem does not apply to (South) Korean, Japanese or Taiwanese expats and exports. I have no problem with the Han Chinese as an ethnic group (and remember, most present Taiwanese are Han; the refugees from the Chinese Civil War outnumbered the native population), nor with the nearly-racially-indistinguishable Koreans and Japanese. My problem is with the totalitarian state of the People's Republic of China, which brainwashes its youth and may in the near future enact full-scale cyberwarfare against the West; enemy agents and hardware with enemy backdoors are dangerous.
There are legitimate reasons to dislike Israel and Western support of Israel that have nothing to do with the fact that most of its citizen population is Jewish. I don't happen to think that those reasons justify massacre, but some do. To insistently consider such people "anti-Semitic" is to buy into the Zionists' (and, to some degree, the neo-Nazis') preferred frame that Israel speaks for and is supported by all Jews, which it doesn't and isn't.
Are there true anti-Semites, including in the West? Yes, obviously. But your proffered litmus test for them is inaccurate. And while I'm not attributing malice to you personally, the conflation of anti-Zionists and anti-Semites is to a large degree enemy action - and it's difficult to blame people for refusing to concede to that.
In theory this is possible, but typically the surrounding circumstances strongly suggest that the anti-Israel sentiment is motivated in large part by anti-Semitism. For example, if the anti-Israel person applies double-standards to Israel. Or if the anti-Israel person professes to care a great deal about Palestinian Arabs but doesn't seem to particularly care about other third-world groups. And doesn't particularly care about the way Palestinian Arabs are treated, for example, by Lebanon. Or by Hamas.
There's sort of a parallelism here: If someone uses Palestinian Arabs strictly as a cudgel to attack Israel, it's reasonable to respond with the "cudgel" of an anti-Semitism accusation.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link